Reheating and a few other questions

So I have been making homemade baby food, mashing it, and freezing it in 1oz and 4oz containers. At night I pull the next day's food out of the freezer and leave it in the fridge overnight to thaw. Then when I am ready to feed my baby, I empty the container contents out directly into a small saucepan and heat it up like that. Is this safe? Upon doing research it says I am supposed to heat it in a heat proof dish of water in the saucepan. I don't have any heat proof dishes in my kitchen however. We also don't like microwaves and don't even own one, so how should I be heating my baby's food?

I tried filling a bowl with hot water and putting the container of food in that to heat up. It took nearly an hour for it to get even slightly warm. I felt iffy about that and didn't end up feeding her that food. I just fed her from a jar that time instead.

I also sometimes feed her mashed table food if it seems appropriate.

Another question: how much solid food should an 8 month old be getting? On the one hand if I give her too little solid food she won't have enough to eat. On the other hand if I give her too much food she will get less breast milk. If the consistency of a food is very smooth she will eat and eat and eat. So I can't go by her appetite. If the consistency is chunkier she will hardly eat at all.

Which brings me to my next question. Advice for progressing with coarser textures for her?

Re: Reheating and a few other questions

We heated the food in a saucepan sometimes, or sometimes we used a bottle warmer. We'd just put the bowl on top and it would take a while to thaw it and get it warm. I think the saucepan is fine -- they probably just don't want you to get it too hot. We always gave our LO small amounts, but as much as she wanted. I felt like I was refilling her bowl sometimes. There were days she'd eat two bites, but other days she'd eat 2 servings of pureed/mashed foods plus some finger foods (usually melon or something) afterwards. We never had any problems with her nursing less.

If you're doing purees, getting some more textures can be hard, depending on what you want to do. You can just puree food less or with less water. We wanted to add grains as the texture, so I would have to cook them a long time to get them soft, then I would add them to pureed vegetables. We found some vegetable pasta alphabets that got nice and soft and stirred them into her food. I think the finger foods are a good source of texture -- we always had a combination of both.

Mom to my sweet little "Pooper," born 10/12/11, and "Baby Brother," born 6/23/2014, and married to heavy metal husband. Working more than full-time, making healthy vegetarian meals for family, and trying to keep up with exercise routine.

Re: Reheating and a few other questions

I think at 8 months you would be more than okay giving her table food she can pick up and feed herself. That will also help her learn to regulate her own intake of solids. At this point you should still be nursing before solid meals to make sure she is filling up on breast milk and not solids. Her intake will vary quite a bit, there's not really any set amount of solids she should be getting.

Long french fry shaped pieces of food work best, since it sort of has a handle baby can grip in her fist and suck, gum, gnaw on the end of it (rather than being able to fit the whole thing in her mouth and try to swallow it). I think at that age we were doing things like sweet potato roasted in the oven w a touch of olive oil or pear cut in long slices or banana split into three pieces lengthwise. Steamed carrot sticks. Broccoli in pieces large enough that she can hold the stalk and eat the flowery end. Lightly toasted bread cut into strips. A whole apple peeled so she can suck on it or scrape bits off with her teeth (if she's got them). If you're up for a mess you can do things like cooked black beans to help her start exercising that pincher grip.

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